The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

Reader Chalicechick writes in to let us know that her local AMC has a sign up banning kids under 6 years old after 6pm in R-rated movies.

She thinks this is good news, but also writes in with a complaint.

The good news is that children under six are no longer allowed in to rated-R movies after six p.m.

The bad news is when I stood at the ticket window of the theater in [redacted] and took a picture of the sign with the good news on it, then went inside the theater, I was stopped by an AMC employee in the lobby.

“You’re not allowed to take pictures of the AMC logo” she snapped. I thought of pointing out the legal issues with that one, but I’d already paid for a ticket to the 3-d Alice in Wonderland and didn’t want to get kicked out.

“Um, OK” I said. My friend was late and I was standing in the lobby waiting for her. I was bored so I pulled out my phone.

“Are you taking pictures AGAIN?” the employee snapped, racing over. Again, I was in the lobby. I guess I could have been taking a picture of a movie poster or the popcorn guy or something, but nothing remotely close to photographing a movie or anything actually illegal.

“I’m, um, looking at Twitter,” I said, holding up my phone. She examined it intently, taking it out of my hand to make sure I wasn’t, in fact, photographing the popcorn guy. I had actually been looking at twitter, so she handed my phone back and my friend showed up and that was that.

I still like AMC’s new policy and I’d already sent a post to my blog praising them when all the drama about my photo started. I’m keeping that post complete with photograph up, but either AMC’s policies or their employees are completely insane.

Could be either, really. At least they didn’t give you directions to White Bear Lake.